


To Save a Madman

by Regency



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-01
Updated: 2014-12-01
Packaged: 2018-02-27 16:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2699033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Regency/pseuds/Regency
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor sends his current chief companion back to save some old friends from a temporal catastrophe in the TARDIS. Naturally, River’s the woman for the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Save a Madman

**Author's Note:**

> Just a random thing I wrote way back when. Thought I'd share.

                River teleported into the console room five minutes before the implosion—and immediately damned the man.  _Of course, you send me to a room filled with strangers. Lovely._   It was a regular school reunion of past companions.  _I’m going to kill him for this._

                “Who are you? What are you doing in my TARDIS,” asked the Doctor himself, some fifty years too soon.

                “I’m here to stop a very bad thing from happening.”  _This is the worst dialogue. Whatever was he thinking?_

                “What? How could you possibly know what’s going to happen?”  His incredulous expression was predictably ridiculous.  She sighed while getting right down to business.  _The things I put up with for him._

                “There really isn’t time for this conversation.”

                “Make time.”  _Stubborn as ever._

                “Four minutes and thirty-two seconds before we cross into the path of a solar flare.”

                “The TARDIS will have already compensated for that with navigational control.”

                “Not if it the solar flare is concealed in a temporal blind. Separate timelines will converge and while the ship is attempting to maintain position in this timeline, it will be unable to simultaneously maintain adequate chrono-spatial shield integrity against the effects of the solar flare as it crosses our timeline into another. It will destroy the external TARDIS structure without fail, leading to your next regeneration, as well as the death of every human on this deck.  Believe me or don’t, but if you think I’m willing to have that on my conscience, you’re very wrong.  Four minutes, two.”

                “What do I need to do?”

                She rounded the console quickly. “Stay out of my way.” 

                “Now, see here--”

“Three minutes, forty-four.  Do shut up, sweetie. I’m working.”  She had already begun to re-route a series of wires beside the command controls.  The entire thing sparked, singeing her fingertips.  _Sorry, love._   The TARDIS was displeased.

                “‘Sweetie’? Did you just call me ‘sweetie’?”

                Ignoring him per usual, she input a set of memorized coordinates with one hand while spinning another dial and throwing a complex series of switches.  They were going to have to leap past the solar flare.  It shouldn’t have been difficult, but time was rather stubborn about being rewritten.  She didn’t bother with the blue stabilizers, preferring to put all her effort into pulling the final lever.  It did _not_ want to be pulled.

                “Come now, lovely, don’t be stubborn.”  _Two minutes, ten._   “Do it for him.  We don’t want to see his hearts broken again, do we?”  _One minutes, fifty-seven._   She began to think very loudly in Gallifreyan.  _Stop this nonsense right away.  I’ve been given a mission and I will not fail.  You know that I love you dearly, but you are trying my patience.  Look and see that I can be trusted. Look and see that I mean no harm._

She winced as the TARDIS reached into her with a great deal less care than she was accustomed to and rifled through her thoughts.  She daren’t resist, daren’t relent for a single second; they couldn’t spare it.  The discomfort built at her temples, pushing behind her eyes, and throbbing across her occipital to the base of her skull.  When Sexy was unhappy, she made herself thoroughly felt.

                River’s limbs had begun to quiver, darkness encroached on the edges of her vision, sour nausea bubbled at the back of her throat.  She was strong – Time Lord-strong – but no one was TARDIS-strong.  She was staggering. _Fifty-nine seconds._

                “All right, old girl. That’s quite enough.”  The Doctor’s tenth regeneration grabbed hold of the lever with her and gave a mighty pull.  The handle resisted their every effort until it no longer did.  The last few degrees, it followed smoothly and they rumbled to their new place and time, all souls saved.

                River hit the grated floor without a word.  She’d be fine; it wasn’t anything a new face couldn’t fix.  _Blood vessels in the brain are such delicate things._

…

                “You set my TARDIS on fire!”

                That was what she woke up to when she finally did, with a golden belch and a fading headache.

                “What?”

                “You! You set her on fire.”

                River groaned and covered her face.  Her regenerations had always been rather violent.  “Sorry about that.  It’s been a while since my last change.”

                “Right.  Well, yes, all right then.”  The Doctor pushed up his glasses and stared at her pensively.  “You’re a Time Lord.”

                “No.”

                “Oh, no, you most certainly are.  Take it from me, I’ve got some experience with this.”

                “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

                “How?”

                “I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”

                “Why not?”

                “You aren’t supposed to know me yet.”

                “Who are you exactly?”  He stared at her, rapt, as though the answer were encoded somewhere in her features.  She touched her face curiously, wondering if she’d gotten to the garnet eyes he was so fond of yet.  Given his expression, she couldn’t be sure.

                “That’s what you aren’t supposed to know.  Just know that someday we’re going to run together.”

                “The two of us?”

                “And then some, yes.” 

He considered her words a moment.  “You saved my friends.”

 _He never numbers himself among those that need saving._   Yet, she would always try.

                “ _We_ saved them.”

                He smiled. “Thank you.”

                “I only did as you asked.”

                “You didn’t have to.”

                “Sexy can get a bit tetchy when I refuse your polite requests.”  She could become quite tetchy either way, in River’s experience.  But she knew her second mum was sorry, apology humming through her temples, soothing the lasting ache.

                The Doctor scratched uneasily at the back of his neck.  “Yeah, sorry about that, by the way.  She’s usually a lot more accommodating when lives are at stake.”

                “It’s fine.  I was about due for a new face anyway.” 

                “See, that’s what I’m talking about. You say you’re not a Time Lord, but I know what we do and that’s exactly what you’ve done. Tell me what you are, if you aren’t that.”

                River rose from the bed with a stretch.  “I’m yours, Doctor.  Someday, I will be.”  She kissed his cheek before leaving the med bay for the console room.

…

                “You called me ‘sweetie,’” he persisted as he followed her back to the heart of the TARDIS.

                “I did.”  She ascended the stairs, silently acknowledging those companions who still lingered aboard but kept their distance.  Nearly every visible surface was marked with soot.   _I’m never going to hear the end of this._

                “Someone’s called me that before.”

                “Ooh, should I be jealous?”  She tossed him a saucy smile over her shoulder and continued on her way.

                “Should I be?”  Were the Doctor a more perceptive man, he might have noticed a number of flinching expressions on the faces around them.  _Bless_ , he’d never been especially gifted at matters of the heart.

                “Of who?  Yourself?”

                “Him exactly.  He finds you.”  She was stopped short by that momentarily, though she refused to show it.  _Always sweetest when he least means to be._

                “Oh, it’s a great deal more exciting and complicated than that.”  She keyed her destination into her vortex manipulator.  He eyed the device with obvious suspicion.  _Some things never change, and some people._

                “I look forward to it.”

                “I believe you, oddly enough.” She poised her finger over the dial.  “Goodbye, Doctor.”

                “Goodbye, River Song.”

                Her laughter followed her home.  So, this was the face he knew after all.

                

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: Silence in the Library, Forest of the Dead. Speculation following Day of the Moon and A Good Man Goes to War; intended to take place directly before the end of Journey’s End.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, setting, or quotes recognizable as being from Doctor Who. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.
> 
> If you guys wanna talk/flail/flop with me on Tumblr, I'm [sententiousandbellicose](http://sententiousandbellicose.tumblr.com).


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